Esoteric Encyclopedia Entry of the Week: Ariosophy

Ariosophy (or Armanism) is the name of an esoteric ideological system pioneered by Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels in Austria, between 1890-1930. The term in itself is relating to wisdom concerning the Aryans.

In historic research on the topic, such as Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s book The Occult Roots of Nazism, the term ‘Ariosophy’ is used generically to describe the Aryan-esoteric theories of a subset of the ‘Völkische Bewegung’.[1] This broader use of the word is retrospective and was not generally current among the esotericists themselves.” List actually called his doctrine ‘Armanism’, while Lanz used the terms ‘Theozoology’ and ‘Ario-Christianity’ before the First World War.

The ideas of Von List and Lanz von Liebenfels were part of a general occult revival in Austria and Germany of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, inspired by historical Germanic paganism and holistic philosophy as well as esoteric concepts influenced byGermanromanticism and Theosophy. The connection of this Germanic mysticism with historical Germanic culture is evident in the mystics’ fascination with runes, in the form of Guido von List’sArmanen runes. Ariosophy in its narrow sense was a Liturgic-free newthought-influenced movement without clearlydelineated dogmatics, centered around the publications of Herbert Reichstein Verlag.

To learn more about Ariosophy, the documentary below is an interesting, if not curious, account of the strange esoteric influence on Germany, and Austria….